


Promise

by Swan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arya-centric, Communication, Episode: s08e04 The Last of the Starks, F/M, Fix-It, Identity Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:50:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swan/pseuds/Swan
Summary: Sansa makes Arya attend the feast. This changes things.In which Dany doesn't get the chance to legitimize Gendry, Arya gets to have interactions with other people than just Gendry and her family, and Arya and Gendry have an actual conversation about their relationship.





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> I was actually expecting that something like 8x4 would happen to Gendrya after Gendry survived the battle of Winterfell, so I wasn't mad. I've also never expected a happy ending for Arya, or that Gendrya would actually become canon.  
> But I am a sucker for Gendrya, despite me cynic heart, and I do think this situation could have been easily resolved by communication (and Dany keeping her mouth shut), so I wrote this.

“You have to attend the feast,” Sansa told her before the funeral pyres.

Arya had in fact never planned to attend the feast. It was a strange thing that Sansa was the one who knew her now. Jon used to be the one knew her better than anyone. They used to think the same thoughts, talk at the same time. Now there was a wall between them, made out of all the thing she kept from him and he kept from her. Jon didn’t know what to do with his strange little sister, still and deathly and aloof. He kept looking at her as if he didn’t know what he was seeing, especially since she had killed the Night King.

“Oh, I have to, now?” Arya retorted coldly.

Had they been children, Sansa would have turned angry and indignant, but this Sansa knew better.

She looked at Arya with an unfazed expression on her face. “You need to be here, Arya. The people need to see you.”

“So they see I’m just a person, like them, and don’t become too afraid of me? I don’t see a problem with that.”

She used to care what people thought about her, Arya remembered. She had always pretended it didn’t matter, but it had always hurt her, the names people called her, the way they had looked down at her because she couldn’t, wouldn’t be a lady. It seemed all so stupid now. The only people whose opinions were worth caring about were her pack’s. She had no issue with other people fearing her. And after everything Arya had done, maybe they should be scared of her.

“There is a problem with that,” Sansa countered. “You are a daughter of Winterfell, people should respect you, admire you and fear your retribution, but they should not fear you like they fear the dragon queen.”

Arya wondered if Sansa would fear her if she knew what Arya had done to the Freys.

“Arya, the people need to see that we stand together,” Sansa impressed on her. “Only the pack survives. But we can’t do that if you’re not there.”

 _Bran is not there either_ , Arya thought. _Not really_. _And Jon is - separate from me_. Never had Arya thought she might one day feeling closest to Sansa of all her siblings.

“Fine,” she conceded.

“Good,” Sansa said. “We should go, it’s time.”

Her arm twitched for a small moment, as if she was going to reach out to Arya. Arya thought about Theon and Sansa and the things she didn’t understand. Maybe _she_ should reach out. But the moment was gone, Sansa had already stood up.

Arya followed her outside.

* * *

 

“I’m glad you’re here”, Jon said to her and put his hand on hers. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

 _Oh_. Maybe she and Jon were not so separate, after all. He still knew her.

“Sansa made me,” she claimed.

Jon laughed. It was such a rare thing to see that she almost didn’t care people were watching. “The thought of _Sansa_ making _you_ do anything…”

“The power of the better argument,” she said dryly.

“I don’t think either of you ever cared about that,” Jon chuckled. “Father,” there was something in his eyes and in his voice as he said that word, something Arya couldn’t decipher, “would be proud of both of you. But especially you - the slayer of the Night King, fiercer than any warrior.” The pride in his voice was unmistakable. He leaned down to kiss her forehead. A part of her wanted to hug him and never let go, as if he were still capable of chasing her hurt away like he used to when they were children. But another part of her wanted to push him away and berate him. Was Jon stupid? Now everyone there _knew_.

She pulled her hand away from him, wrapping it around the familiar form of Needle. She felt Jon look at her but she couldn’t look back. She knew he would not understand.

The dragon queen toasted to her. “To Arya Stark, the hero of Winterfell!” As the hall broke out in cheers, yelling “Arya Stark” and “House Stark”, it was as if a heavy weight was pressing onto her chest. They had roared for her brother too - when they were parading his body around, Greywind’s head sewn onto his neck.

It would be so easy to hide a few killers in this crowd, just waiting for the right moment to strike when everyone was drunk - why were they all drinking, didn’t they know it made them slow? As she looked through the crowd, intent on finding anyone who seemed false, anyone who could be planning to kill them, her gaze fell on the Hound. He didn’t cheer for her and he didn’t down his cup like the other men. He just looked annoyed and disgruntled, as always. The familiar sight of his sullen demeanor somehow calmed Arya.

This was not like at the Twins. Cersei did not have that long of an arm. And the dragon queen...she would not kill them this way.

Arya’s eyes wandered away, towards Gendry. He wasn’t cheering or drinking either, he was staring at her. He didn’t look at her the same way everyone was looking at her, with a mix of fear and awe. He was looking at her like she was the only thing in this world worth looking at. It made Arya want to go back to the storage room with him, away from all this.

They hadn’t talked since before the battle. They hadn’t _really_ talked since he arrived at Winterfell. Arya wasn’t really sure she knew how to talk to people she cared about anymore. But maybe she could try, later. After the fucking. (Which would definitely happen tonight. Gendry had awakened something in her, something that wanted and wanted, and seeing the way he looked at her, she was sure she had awakened something in him, too.)

The mood in the hall was becoming more animated, people were speaking loudly and walking around. Jon’s wilding friend, Tormund, came up to them. “I always knew you were crazy, crow, but you never told me your sister was crazier! How’d it feel, killing the fucking Night King?”

She couldn’t really say how it had felt. She knew that afterwards she had been relieved, and breathless, and terrified (because what was it worth surviving if those you cared about didn’t?), but actually killing him – it didn’t really feel like she was the one who had done it.

But this was not the story.

Arya bared her teeth. “Like killing every other fucker.” She fluidly pulled out her dagger and twirled it a few times before sticking it in the wood of the table, right between Tormund’s fingers. “I put my dagger in his heart and he died like any other man,” she grinned wolfishly.

Tormund laughed. “Ha! I like you! You’re a true Northerner. You’d fit in well with the free folk.”

Arya smirked and collected her dagger, sheathing it. “I’ve always wanted to be a wilding when I was a child.”

Tormund turned indignantly towards Jon. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about her!”

Jon snorted. “Believe me Tormund, there is no way in hell I would have ever told you, or anyone from the free folk about my little sister.”

Tormund sounded amused. “Didn’t want anyone to steal her, huh?”

“Steal?” Arya asked with raised eyebrows.

Jon grimaced. “This is how the free folk does it, they steal their spear wives.”

“Do the women ever steal men?” Arya asked Tormund curiously. She wondered if she had, in a way, stolen Gendry.

Tormund laughed. “Well…if they can, why not? A great warrior like you – I bet most of my men would enjoy being stolen by you just as much as stealing you.”

“Tormund,” Jon warned in a dark voice.

Arya wasn’t sure if she was touched or annoyed by Jon’s protectiveness.

“Just saying,” Tormund shrugged unapologetically. “And I’m pretty sure the Night King Slayer doesn’t need your protection, crow – Ah, don’t make such a long face, drink!”

As Tormund proceeded to try to get Jon drunk Arya got up, intending to leave, but she didn’t get far.

“Leaving us so soon, Lady Arya? I think you haven’t even had something to drink yet,” Tyrion Lannister approached her.

“Drink makes you slow and stupid,” Arya said dismissively.

He snorted. “That sentence could have come right out of my father’s mouth.” He was clearly already drunk.

Tywin Lannister had often demanded water for his men to keep their heads clear when she had been his cup-bearer, she remembered.

“Well, he _was_ a clever man,” she commented lightly.

Tyrion stared at her. “Is that a compliment from a Stark to my father?” he said incredulously.

“It’s not a compliment. It’s just the truth,” she shrugged.

“I heard you killed him. How did you do it?” She didn’t bother hiding the excitement in her voice.

Tyrion was uncomfortable now. “I shot an arrow through his chest as he was on the lavatory,” he eventually revealed with a bitter twist in his voice.

“You killed him in a lavatory?” Arya repeated gleefully.

Tyrion considered her. “You seem to have a lot of opinions about my father.”

“I met him,” Arya explained. “I was his prisoner once, in Harrenhal. He made me his cup-bearer.”

Tyrion burst out laughing. “You mean to tell me that we actually had you? Right under my father’s nose?”

“He probably would have found me out, had he stayed much longer,” Arya admitted. “He recognized right away that I was a girl and a Northerner, and he kept trying to trick me into revealing I was a high-born.”

“Tried to trick you into...he talked to you?” Tyrion sounded astounded.

“Yes,” Arya nodded. “He talked to me about his family quite a few times. Not you though. Mostly about your brother, and Cersei, and his father.”

He stared at her. Then he laughed again. “I don’t know what’s funnier. That he had you and didn’t know it, or that he actually liked you.”

Arya furrowed her brow. “I don’t think he liked anyone, including himself.”

He looked her over with shrewd eyes. “You’re very perceptive, Lady Arya. And you seem to have lived an interesting life in the last years. No one knows where you were before you came back to Winterfell. You just…disappeared from King’s Landing. Everyone thought you dead.”

“I was not,” Arya shrugged.

“No, you lived. And you picked up quite impressive skills. I’m curious how you managed that.”

Arya smirked. “Feel free to be curious.”

Tyrion chuckled lightly. “Well, I would be lying if I said this answer surprised me. You don’t seem like the talkative type.”

No, she wasn't. Not anymore.

“I won’t keep you longer. Do enjoy the feast, you have saved all of us, after all.” He walked towards the table his brother was sitting, doubtlessly in order to tell him what Arya had just told him about his father.

Arya made her way to Gendry and the Hound. She sat down right next to Gendry, across from the Hound. He groaned as he saw her. “I’m not staying here, watching you two moon over each other,” he scoffed, grabbing a tankard of ale. Before he could leave Arya reached out and grabbed his wrist.

The Hound was a large man and she was a small woman. By all accounts this shouldn’t have made him stop. But it did. He stilled and looked her in the eyes. Arya wondered what that said about him. (That was a lie. She knew exactly what it meant.)

For once, Arya was honest with him: “Thanks for coming for me. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

His eyes widened, surprised. He harrumphed. “Would’ve been a waste to let you die on my watch after all the time and effort I put into protecting you,” he grumbled finally. “How’d you kill the dead fucker anyway?”

She felt her lips twitch. “Guess I remembered where the heart was.”

The Hound let out a laugh. (It sounded proud.)

He stood up and was about to go off, when he turned around again, giving first Gendry, than her a dubious look. “You know what you’re doing?” he demanded gruffly.

“Yes,” she said amusedly.

He grunted and gave Gendry a dark look, than he left for another table.

Arya turned towards Gendry. “So...the hero of Winterfell,” Gendry said. “Has a nice sound.”

“And you wanted me to stay in the crypts,” she jibed.

“I didn’t mean to...doubt your abilities,” Gendry said earnestly. “I just wanted you safe.”

“I don’t need saving.”

“I know.” His eyes were soft. “Arya...can we talk?”

“We are talking,” she replied flatly. It was always fun to tease him.

“I mean...can we talk somewhere no one is listening, just the two of us?”

She raised her eyebrow. “Talking? Or do you mean something else?”

“No! I mean - “ Gendry stammered. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

Arya smirked. “Not yet.”

She could see his pupils dilate as he looked at her. He wanted her.

And she wanted him.

She glanced at the head table, hoping to leave unnoticed. Both Jon and Sansa were sufficiently distracted, but - the dragon queen was looking at Gendry in a calculating way. Arya quickly moved away from Gendry. What had the dragon queen already seen? Had Arya’s body language betrayed her?

Her brain whirring, Arya’s look fell on the wildlings at the next table. “Leave when everyone’s distracted and wait for me outside. I’ll come after you,” she instructed. Tormund seemed like the kind of man who’d agree to a knife throwing contest in a room full of people. 

* * *

 

Gendry was waiting for her outside, brightening up when he saw her. She easily stepped towards him and pulled him down for a soft kiss. Then she took him by the hand and led him to her chamber.

“What was that about?” Gendry asked amusedly after they were safely in her room. “Knife throwing contests with wildlings? I wouldn’t have minded watching that, you know.”

"The dragon queen was looking at you, I had to distract her,” she explained darkly.

“So no other woman can look at me?” Gendry said, sounding stupidly smug.

“Not like that, you idiot. She has plans with you.”

“You don’t like her, do you?” Gendry realized.

“We can’t trust her,” she said firmly, thinking about the way the dragon queen had smiled riding into Winterfell and her obvious falseness as she had cheered on Arya.

“Your brother does.”

“Because he’s the idiot who’s fucking her,” Arya sneered. “Trusting people only gets you killed.”

“You can trust _some_ people, you know.” His voice was soft.

“Yeah? Like the Brotherhood? And how has that turned out for you?”

Gendry looked angry. “That’s not fair.”

“Nothing is fair in this world,” Arya said scornfully.

Why were they even fighting? Arya wanted to make it stop, to go back to before but she didn’t know how.

Thankfully Gendry seemed to know what to do. He just kissed her.

After a few long kisses he moved down, pressing kiss after kiss on her neck. “I know the world is not fair,” he murmured. “Doesn’t make sense that someone like me gets to have someone like you.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped. “Stop with the someone like you and someone like me crap. There’s only you and me. And you’re the only one I’d ever give myself to.”

Gendry looked at her with wide eyes. His next kiss was deep, almost desperate. “Only me?” he gasped.

“I’ve never wanted someone like I want you,” Arya heard herself say as she tried to divest them of their clothes.

This time, Gendry was on top. It should have made her wary - he was so much stronger than she was, he could easily hold her down and do whatever he wanted. But instead it just made her feel excited.

Afterwards, Gendry held her and stroked down her side. Though it was soothing and made Arya want to sink down in his warmth, she couldn’t let go of her worry. “If the dragon queen knows about your father, she’s either going to kill you or use you...though if she wanted to kill you she would have probably already tried…”

Gendry frowned. “What do you mean, use me?”

“Legitimize you and make you a lord, so you owe her loyalty.”

Something in her voice must have told Gendry what she thought about that, because he eyed her carefully. “Would that be a bad thing, me being a lord?” he asked.

 _I don’t like lords_ , she thought selfishly.

“Would you like to be a lord?” she deflected.

“Don’t know...probably every bastard boy from Flea’s Bottom has fantasies about being a lord’s son, but you learn to leave that behind. I used to think I’d become an armorer like my master, and I was content with it. But that was before -” Gendry broke off. “It would mean...I know you don’t care, but other people do. If I were a lord -”

 _Please don’t say it_ , Arya thought. _Please don’t ruin this_.

“If I were a lord,” he repeated, “would you agree to marry me?”

When she had been with the Faceless Men she hadn’t succeeded in killing every part of Arya Stark. Since she was back she realized she killed more of Arya Stark than she had thought. But if there was one thing, one part of her she had always known, that she would never change, it would be this. _That’s not me_ , she had told her father years ago and it was still as true now as it was then.

“I can’t be a lady,” she said softly. “I will not ever be some lord’s wife. Even if that lord is you.” She gulped down the lump in her throat. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be a lord,” she carried on quickly. “You’re good and you care about people, you’d be better than any of these cunts. In fact, if you want I can talk to Jon, I’m sure he would - “

“Arya, stop,” Gendry interrupted. “Do you honestly think that would be worth anything without you? The only reason I’d want to be lord is to be with you.”

Gendry shouldn’t say those things. He shouldn’t base this decision on her.

“I’m going to leave for King’s Landing,” Arya blurted out.

“What?” Gendry jerked back. “Why?”

“Cersei is still alive. You know she’s on my list.”

“Arya -”

“I’m not...a hero, or a warrior. I am killer. I have killed a lot of people, and I will kill more people. Cersei has been on my list for too long. She needs to die.”

“You don’t need to do this,” Gendry pleaded. “Let the dragon queen take care of Cersei Lannister.”

“I need to do this,” Arya protested.

“And when you come back, what then?” Gendry asked.

“I can’t promise I will come back,” she admitted. “I escaped the God of Death so many times, I’m not sure I will manage once more. That’s why you shouldn’t... pass on a lordship just because of me. If I’m not coming back...any lady would be lucky to have you.”

Gendry’s face darkened. “No,” he said firmly. “There’s just one thing in this world that I really want, and that’s you. And if I have to wait for you to finish your list, I’m gonna do that.” He looked at her mulishly. “And there could never be anyone else but you. I only love you.”

“You’re so _stupid_ ,” she said. “I can’t promise you anything. Even if I come back - I won’t ever give you children, and I’m not sure I’d ever be ready to marry you. I did things you probably find horrible, and I’ll probably never stop killing people.” “

Fine by me,” Gendry said defiantly, as bullheaded as ever.

“Just...promise me you will come back to me when you’re done.”

Arya closed her eyes briefly. The few times she had allowed herself to think about what could be after Cersei she had always come up empty. Jon and Sansa didn’t need her. Not in peace times. She didn’t think she had a place in Winterfell anymore, not really, too much of a killer, not enough of the Arya Stark she had been.

Somehow Gendry knew that, or he suspected.

She wasn’t sure she could ever really come back to Winterfell but she could come back to Gendry. Jon and Sansa and even Bran made her feel like she was not alone in this world anymore, but there was always this dissonance between who she had been and who she was now – sometimes it felt like she was just playing at being Arya Stark. Gendry though, Gendry made her feel like a real person, with wants and loves besides plotting and killing. (And maybe even a future.)

“I promise,” she said, hoping with everything within her this was a promise she would be able keep.


End file.
